Fragile
by Aggy
Summary: Abby’s thoughts on Gibb’s retirement and return.


**Disclaimer:** NCIS belongs to CBS, its creators, writers, whoever owns the copyright. I'm just a visitor and not making any money from this.

Title: Fragile  
Author(s): Aggy  
Fandom: NCIS

Rating: PG-13  
Timeframe: During the end of Shalom  
Characters: Abby (with cameos of the others)  
Genre: Angst  
Summary: Abby's thoughts on Gibb's retirement and return  
Notes: In my reality, Gibbs didn't give Director Shepard the photo.

Fragile  
Aggy 

She saw how they looked at her. With pity in their eyes. They tried to hide it, but it was always there. Tony tried to hide it behind his easygoing smiles and womanizing comments. Ziva offered to take her out to lunch or to the movies, but socializing wasn't the answer. Tim had stuttered and offered to let her upgrade his computer system. They'd . . . ahem . . . upgraded a few times but it never eased the pain.

So she lurked in her lab after everyone was gone, staring up at the monitors that illuminated the walls, staring up at her favorite pictures of Gibbs, wishing for something she couldn't put into words.

Everyone acted like she was so damn fragile. Like the slightest little upset life threw at her would shatter her. She wasn't fragile, dammit! She'd grieved for Kate, maybe excessively at times, but she'd pulled through. She's survived psychotic ex-boyfriends-slash-stalkers. Hell, she'd taken out her own assassin, tasering the guy until he begged for mercy.

But that didn't mean she hadn't felt a thrill of exhilaration when she saw Gibbs charging toward the van, hell-bent on saving her. He'd protected her from her stalker and the hit man, keeping her sane in a situation that would drive even the most level-headed person crazy. He'd been there when she'd needed him. And she could not say that she had done the same.

It had been Ziva that reawakened Gibb's memories, not Abby. She hadn't been able to do anything to help him. He'd stared at her while she fidgeted at the foot of his bed. There was no recognition in his eyes. No special smile that he saved just for her. Her presence had meant nothing to him. Sometimes, when she let her darker thoughts free, she wondered if her presence would ever mean anything to him again.

Yes, she had dark thoughts. Yes, she was hurting. Hurting beyond measure, but that didn't mean she was fragile. That didn't mean she wanted or deserved her friends' pity.

They didn't understand! They couldn't understand. They'd lost a mentor, a father figure. She'd lost something more. She'd lost her best friend. She'd lost . . . She'd lost something that she avoided defining, which frustrated her analytical mind.

She needed order. Routine. No matter how spontaneous she acted or how outrageous she dressed, she respected order. It was what kept the world stable. It was what kept HER world stable.

And the most stable thing in her world was Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

And now he was gone, sunning himself on a beach in Mexico, oblivious to her turmoil.

Sometimes she considered flying down there and smacking him. But she knew that if she DID do something that impulsive, she'd end up throwing herself into his arms, instead thwapping him.

She entertained that fantasy until she came to the part where Gibbs either embraced her or gently pushed her away. Then fantasy fragmented into thousands of razor-sharp shards, leaving only one question for her to analyze. Did he still care about her?

She shied away from the question, knowing that she WOULD shatter, just like everyone expected, if the answer was 'no.' She couldn't handle a world where Gibbs didn't care about her, care for her.

It was bad enough that he'd breezed into her lab, announcing that soon he would be returning to Mexico. She'd wanted to scream at him for leaving, for never calling. She'd wanted to beg him to him to stay. But she didn't. She remained silent, willing away the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks.

He gently kissed her cheek and gave her the special smile, the one that she'd been staring at every night since he'd said goodbye the first time. "I'll call you," he promised before leaving her lab.

It took a long time for her to compose herself enough to face the others. What she found when she stepped out of the elevator left her speechless. Tony, Ziva, and Tim staring at into space, each other wearing an expression that proclaimed the same sort of pain she'd been living with for months.

"What happened?" she asked softly, jerking Tony out of whatever mental purgatory he'd been visiting.

"Gibbs left." Tim's voice sounded hollow. It reminded her of the empty feeling that she got whenever she looked at Gibb's picture. Like happiness was forever out of reach no matter how much she pretended to be cheerful. "And he didn't say goodbye to anyone."

She ALMOST said, "But he said goodbye to me," but she kept silent. She knew the sort of pain her friends were feeling. She wouldn't add to it by telling them that Gibbs had visited her.

Tony blinked at her, then launched himself at her. She'd barely registered he'd moved before she realized that he was hugging her so hard she could hardly breathe. "God, Abby, you didn't even get to see him before he left!"

It was like a strange parody of Tony's return from the conference. Suddenly she realized that her enthusiastic welcomes might be fun for her, but not so enjoyable for the recipient.

"Tony . . . Can't . . . Breathe."

He slowly eased the pressure around her torso until she could let out a tentative breath. "Are you ok, Abby?"

She nodded slowly, trying to buy time until she could think of something to say that wouldn't hurt her friends. "I'm good. No broken ribs or anything."

He didn't smile at her words or even act like he comprehended them. Instead he just held her. She would have become angry, but she realized that he wasn't trying to comfort her, he was trying comfort himself. He murmured soothing words and she let him. He needed this. So she let him cling to her, pretending to be fragile so that he had could remain strong.

They all needed it, she realized. They all needed to think that she was too fragile to deal with Gibbs' absence. They needed to fuss over

By believing she was fragile, they all remained strong.

No matter how much she hated being thought of as fragile, she would allow them to continue thinking it. If it kept the team together, if it kept each one of them together mentally, then she could be fragile.

Even if it wasn't true.


End file.
